by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
When writing a novel, you’ve got to start somewhere, and I started with Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl Who Played With Fire.” But as I grow into my own as a novelist, I find myself mulling how wrong I was about the novel and how maybe I was wrong to use it as my “textbook” in the first place.
The chief issue for me as I march towards the Beta Reader process for my first novel is how self-indulgent all of Larsson’s work is. Just off the top of my head, I could shave off 50,000 words from The Girl Who Played With Fire. There’s just a lot of fat in the novel that doesn’t need to be there.
Get to the point, Stieg!
In fact, I wasted many, many, many days struggling to figure out the structure of my “textbook.” It just made no sense. I could not figure out what the midpoint of the novel was. It was not until much, much later that I learned that — get this — the novel is actually half of a far longer manuscript that was cut into two.
As such, the reason why I couldn’t figure out the structure is the midpoint was actually the end of the novel. NOW the novel’s structure makes sense.
I think the reason why Larsson got away with being so self-indulgent is was not only was he a successful journalist in his native Sweden, but there was a little bit of linguistic nationalism going on — the publisher probably was willing to publish the novel because it would contribute to the the Swedish language and, more broadly, Swedish culture.
It was not until much, much later that I realized that as an American writing in English that I had a tight 80,000 to 100,000 sweetspot that I needed to hone to. I still as of yet don’t know if I’m going to succeed in doing that. I think it’s possible I may closer to the general 120,000 – 140,000 word range.
I hope not, but it’s possible.
Anyway, I’m, in general, feeling pretty good about the status of my first novel. I still have a great deal of work to do, but it’s at least possible that I will succeed in wrapping up the public Beta no later than July 4th.
